Main Line Health, a five-hospital health system serving the western suburbs of Philadelphia, has chosen a vendor to create an institutional health information exchange.

Main Line Health will use Warminster, Pa-based MobileMD's technology and outsourced services to establish connectivity between its health systems and affiliated physician practices.

Health system representatives say that participating physician practices will be able to access lab results, radiology reports and transcribed reports in real-time, transferred directly into their different electronic medical record systems.

"The ability to link our affiliated practices and provide them with real-time information that is key to the care of their patients was paramount to us," said Joel Port, vice president of planning and business development at Main Line Health.

Port said that MobileMD's ability to handle the needs of various practices and maintain communications on behalf of a hospital would be a significant benefit to Main Line Health physicians.